Taking a break from my top 10 series to plug a bro and review some black metal. This review is gonna be short, because this release is only 11 minutes long and there's not a lot to talk about with music in this genre to begin with, since a lot of it tends to be simple (that's not a bad thing at all; simple music is good).

Life Has No Meaning is a solo black metal project started by Djenty here on the forums in the vein of DSBM (that stands for "depressive suicidal black metal," in case you didn't know). As the name would imply, this demo has a very atmospheric, raw, and bleak approach.

The guitar distortion is extremely brittle and hazy in the fashion of Burzum's "Filosofem" or any other very underproduced and raw black metal you can think of. The basslines are very ostinato and seem to loop endlessly into oblivion. There's not much to say about the instrumentation other than that it's simple and effective.

That being said, the drum machine sounds rather amateur and preset. The kick drum and snare are especially lacking in presence, which I wouldn't mind if they didn't have much presence to begin with, but they start off very exposed, which throws the listener for a loop when they get buried a bit underneath the distortion of the guitars. Djenty has said he's working to get them to sound better, so the next time we hear anything from LHNM, it should be improved.

This release shows a lot of potential for the Life Has No Meaning name, and if you're looking for some to-the-point, no-bullshit, and very dark black metal, this demo is available on Bandcamp for free.

1. Faced With My Own Demise 7/10

2. Without Reason 8/10

Overall: 7.5/10